Izumoya: Sukiyaki by the river in Gion
When we travel to Kyoto, we like to spend some time by the Kamo River near Gion-Shijo station. This is a really popular and touristy spot because the river is very picturesque 😍 and there are a lot of restaurants lined up inside or near Pontocho Alley that have a view of this river. Unfortunately, many of these restaurants are also very expensive because they have a prime location next to the river. We were really hoping for a sukiyaki dinner by the river and we (kind of) succeeded!
Izumoya is at the very end (or beginning, depending on which direction you are coming from) of Pontocho Alley and they are a restaurant that specializes in eel, but they also have a lot of sukiyaki options. We dined here at around 6pm on a busy Saturday night and was able to get seated right away.
Izumoya
173-2 Kashiwayacho, Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto, 604-8014, Japan
The vibe
So as mentioned, it was very crowded and busy in this area because it was a Saturday night. Right before 6pm, we decided to commit to eating at Izumoya and there was a pretty long line going out the door. We waited in line and a server asked us if we wanted to sit outside on the patio (overlooking the river) or if we were ok with dining inside as there is no wait. Since we were tired from walking all day, we decided we were fine with dining inside since we do not have to stand wait anymore. They immediately brought us upstairs to the second level 😯.
I was pretty happy with dining inside. The seating was spacious and comfortable and there was AC 😌. We also had a good view of the river through the window ☺️! So I think if you are ok with this, I would recommend not waiting too long for a seat on the patio.
Food review
We had a pretty late lunch around 2pm so we had a lighter dinner. This is everything we ordered to share between 2 adults. Prices have been converted from yen to CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.
Beef sukiyaki with vegetables ($37 – $47)
They have both sukiyaki and shabu shabu on the menu, but we were only interested in the sukiyaki. We chose the cheapest option – beef sukiyaki with veggies. The more expensive ranges include sashimi, rice and dessert but we didn’t think we needed those additional components as we weren’t that hungry.
They force you to order a serving amount per person ranging from small to large and prices range from $37 – 47. But I do like that you can order different servings per person. For example, I wasn’t feeling that hungry so I ordered a small serving for $37 but my husband ordered a medium serving for $42 and together we shared 1 sukiyaki pot.
The server cooks the first few slices for you to try and you dip it in the raw egg. I didn’t think the meat was a super high quality cut, but it was still quite yummy 👍!
After the initial pieces for tasting, the server adds all the veggies, tofu and noodles and dumps the rest of the meat to cook with the sukiyaki broth.
Eel omelette ($8)
We added on an order of the eel omelette as it was under $10. They actually mistook our order for a $40 eel dish but they took it back and gave us the omelette.
The omelette was cooked fine with a decently fluffy egg, but very little eel inside.
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
We had a pretty good dinner at Izumoya. For the price and the location, I think the sukiyaki was worth it and I found it to be delicious. It’s hard sometimes to rate restaurants in Japan because every place serves such delicious and high quality food. I’m sure we could have eaten better sukiyaki but for what ended up happening as a random choice, we were happy.
Izumoya is listed as an eel restaurant in Google, but I don’t think we tried enough eel here to really comment. The $40 eel dish they brought out smelled and looked really good, but we were not willing to pay $40 for it.
Service was ok even with the mix-up. I appreciated the server cooking it for us initially.
Sincerely, Loewe